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Sexual Ambiguity
Sexual ambiguity refers to somebody whose sex is not clearly displayed. It would not be clear to an outsider what the sex of that person would be. Because what counts as female or male is more on a continuum rather than black or white, it can be hard to define sexual ambiguity. What is male, female, or even ambiguous is largely classified by society. The ambiguity can come from dress, physical attributes, or the way that one carries themselves. People can come off as sexually ambiguous by choice, but also from their genetics. Some people are born with ambiguous genitalia (meaning it does not fit the description for men's or women's genitalia), some people are born with different genotypes and phenotypes than just XX or XY, and many other disorders that fit into this category. There are many different intersex syndromes, such as Klinefelter syndrome, which is a chromosomal condition affecting males, androgen insensitivity syndrome, which is when a biological male is resistant to male hormones, and ovotestis, which is when there are both testicular and ovarian aspects to a human gonad.

John Money, who was a psychologist as well as a sexologist, studied sexual identity and gender. He was cited as saying that the overall sense of gender was "privately experienced" and "publicly manifest" regardless of biological sex and genital anatomy. Money is perhaps best known for his work with David Reimer, a biological male who was raised as female due to a mishandled circumcision. Robert Stoller was another frontrunner in the gender field. Stoller is quoted as saying "sex is a biological state, consequent to prenatal biological forces, which almost always results in a newborn with unambiguous female or male genitals. Gender is a psychological state, a complex evolving intrapersonal and interpersonal experience", a quote that perfectly explains the difference between sex and gender.

Hardships
Not having a distinct gender being shown to the world can be very difficult. People may experience teasing, stares, awkwardness in situations such as using a public restroom. When somebody does not fit into society's two boxes of "male" or "female" most people have a hard time understanding them, and therefore have a hard time knowing how to act toward them. This can cause true issues when it comes to organizations where we classify by sex. One of the main areas in which we separate by sex is organized sports. Professional sports are virtually always separated by male/female. Males are often considered superior in athletics because of the male body's natural strength. The benefits that sports can have for women is often overlooked. Sports can provide gender equity as well as empowerment for girls and women.

A current sports-related issue that has been in the media lately revolves around Caster Semenya. Semenya is a South African middle-distance runner and has won gold at the World Championships in the women's 800 meter and also competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics where she won the silver medal. Semenya has brought up some serious controversy, because her appearance and general way has her come off as more male than female. When Semenya won gold in the World Championships, the International Association of Athletics Federation requested gender verification tests. They were concerned with whether or not she was "eligible" to compete in women's sports. The International Association of Athletics Federation were concerned because of Semenya's deep voice, muscular build, and her rapid improvement in her running times. Semenya identifies as a woman, he family and friends say she is a woman. The results were not released, but Semenya was cleared to race with the rest of the women. However, running is her passion, and this controversy put her in a spotlight she did not particularly want, and invaded her privacy. Simply because she did not perfectly fit female standards, she was put through potentially humiliating tests and temporarily suspended from competition.

References

Cooky, C., & Dworkin, S. L. (2013). Policing the Boundaries of Sex: A Critical Examination of Gender Verification and the Caster Semenya Controversy. Journal Of Sex Research, 50(2), 103-111

Dreger, Alice. "Ambiguous sex"--or Ambivalent Medicine? The Hastings Center Report May/Jun 1998, Volume 28, Issue 3 Pages 24-35. http://www.isna.org/articles/ambivalent_medicine

"Klinefelter syndrome" U.S. National Library of Medicine Jan 2013. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/klinefelter-syndrome

Kirkpatrick, M. (2003). "The Nature and Nurture of Gender." Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 23(4), 558-571.

Spade, Joan Z., and Catherine G. Valentine. The Kaleidoscope of Gender: Prisms, Patterns, and Possibilities. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011. Print.

Sport and Gender: Empowering Girls and Youth. http://www.righttoplay.com/International/our-impact/Documents/Final_Report_Chapter_4.pdf